The Hungry Earth
The Hungry Earth is the eighth episode of Series Five. It is the first part of a two-part story. It marks the re-appearance of the Silurians for the first time in 26 years. Synopsis It’s 2020, and the most ambitious drilling project in history has reached deeper beneath the Earth’s crust than man has ever gone before – but now the ground itself is fighting back. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory arrive in a tiny mining village and find themselves plunged into a battle against a deadly danger from a bygone age. Plot In 2020, in the small Welsh village of Cwmtaff, a team led by Dr. Nasreen Chaudhry is attempting the deepest drilling project in history, in order to investigate minerals that appeared locally, but otherwise have not been on the surface for over 20 million years. Mo Northover, a night watchman on the project, finds a strange subsidence in the ground inside the mine complex, and, upon investigating, is dragged beneath the surface. Shortly thereafter, The Doctor arrives with Amy and Rory, having promised them a vacation in Rio de Janeiro but misnavigated. What could have been a brief stop quickly turns into an extended visit when the Doctor notices a major drilling operation and some strange blue grass (evidence of the same unusual minerals Dr. Chaudhry was interested in). When the three head off to explore the mine, Rory turns back to return Amy's engagement ring to the TARDIS for safekeeping, and is unable to catch up to them. Rory is mistaken for a police investigator by local resident Ambrose Northover. Together with her son Elliot, Ambrose explains that local graves were being mysteriously dug up without disturbing the ground, and Rory begins to investigate. After breaking into the mine, the Doctor and Amy meet Dr. Chaudhry and her assistant Tony Mack. Shortly after they begin talking, an earthquake strike, pulling Tony into a hole in the Earth. Amy and Dr. Chaudhry both attempt to pull Tony free, and are ultimately successful, but in the process, Amy gets stuck in a hole and pulled underground. The Doctor figures out that the ground had been bio-programmed to attack whenever it perceived a threat (a technology thousands of years ahead of the 21st century), and insists that the drill be shut off. The drill is stopped, but not until after Amy has been pulled underground, and the drill head had breached a network of catacombs 21km below the surface. Putting together the information from the available sensors, the Doctor figures out that three entities are heading for the surface, and will arrive in 12 minutes. The Doctor, Dr. Chaudhry, and Tony head to the town church for safety, where they meet up with Rory, Ambrose, and Elliot. The attackers put an energy barricade around the town to prevent escape and provide cover of darkness, while the Doctor and his defenders set up a network of cameras and begin gathering any other supplies that might help. Elliot, having left to collect his headphones from his house, is chased back to the church by a reptilian humanoid, who catches up with him before the people inside can get the door open to save him. When Ambrose and Tony attempt to rescue him, Tony is lashed with a venomous forked tongue by a second reptilian. While they are unable to retrieve Elliot, the Doctor and Rory are able to capture one of the intruders, whom the Doctor quickly recognizes as an unknown 300-million-year-old Sulrian surgeon prepares to perform a vivisection. The prisoner reveals herself to be Alaya, a warrior of a Silurian tribe that had hibernated beneath Cwmtaff for countless years before being disturbed. The Doctor tries to negotiate peacefully, but Alaya insists that the Silurians will wipe humanity off the surface of their planet, while Tony insists that they should dissect Alaya to learn more about what they are facing. Meanwhile, underground, the Silurians have been performing live exploratory vivisection on Mo, and intend to continue with him and begin working on Amy next. The Doctor, after some pressure from Dr. Chaudhry, invites her to come with him in the TARDIS to meet the Silurians at their underground encampment. While he expects a small group of maybe a dozen Silurians, he instead finds an entire civilization, stretching for miles around.